The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
A funny story, this, but it also kind of makes you want to cry, a perfect combination for a Wednesday’s child broadside– especially in Advent, with its heritage of Dickensian, bittersweet tales of moral instruction. I am in London this week to help out a friend who got himself in trouble. A few months ago, returning from a dinner party in a state of more than slight inebriation, he hailed a black cab – you know the kind, the retro thingie with a doorframe high enough to accommodate a man wearing a top hat, the legendary vehicle that makes...
The recent global summit on climate change—inevitably described as “historic”—was discussed and analyzed all over the media-sphere, by bloggers read only by their mothers and friends (if they have any) and by the the most swollen talking heads on television. Everyone was interviewed, profiled, and analyzed. One important participant—an observer really—who escaped their attention was an obscure Italian political analyst, whose work has been studied without understanding for many years. I had a chance to sit down with this great skeptic, and interview him on condition of anonymity. Let’s just call him Nick O. Before the conversation was over, we were...
In this first episode of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Srdja Trifkovic and Dr. Tom Fleming discuss the downing of Russian jets by the Turkish military. Was the US involved? What does this mean for Erdogan? for Putin? They also discuss what the UK’s contribution will be now that they have joined the “coalition.” In the second part of the episode Dr. Trifkovic says that Donald Trump is saying the “unsayable” and while not having a true grasp of the issues, is expressing a visceral reaction that is causing people to look seriously at the idea of immigration – either via economic...
Dear Reader, I would like to announce today that I whole-heartedly agree with the Republican establishment and the American media establishment that Donald Trump owes an apology to all of us for his recent comments on Islamic immigration, but with one caveat: I think Trump should apologize not for what he said about Muslims but for what he did not say. Donald Trump should apologize to the American people for failing to even broach the topic of the Council On American-Islamic Relations’ track record. CAIR is the most visible Islamic organization in the United States, quoted quite liberally by the major media...
Donald Trump, as heavy-footed and inarticulate as he is, has shows himself time after time to be a man of superb political instincts. Cut off, for most of his life, from contact with ordinary Americans, he manages, nonetheless, to display old-fashioned common sense in statements guaranteed both to delight what is fast becoming the Silent Minority and to outrage the cowards, liars, and flunkeys who dominate politics and the press. Donald’s latest stunt—and we can only hope that it is not just a stunt—is to call for a moratorium on Islamic immigration into the United States. Of course, most sensible...
As a Roman moralist, Cicero is seen at his best in the three books of his De Officiis, a work that Dr. Johnson said ought to be read once a year. Officia are not public offices but duties, the responsibilities it is incumbent upon us to carry out. Cicero draw his primary inspiration from Plato and his followers in the Middle Academy, a phase of Platonism that emphasized epistemological skepticism. However, he was also very eclectic and fair-minded, seeking useful truths wherever he could find them–especially from Aristotle but also from the Stoics whose extremism he objected to. For all his...
Dear Readers Many of you by now have experienced our new “walled garden” subscriber format, and I hope you have come to understand and appreciate why we are doing it and how we are setting up the Foundation on a firm footing for a future that will outlast its namesake (though we hope that he will last for some time yet!). Our Charter Subscribers receive a mug and notebook, in addition to some yet-to-be disclosed benefits, but should you wish to purchase these for yourself or for friends or family this month, in solidarity with our cause or simply to...
You know me, folks. You know that when I hear the phrase “human rights” I release the safety catch of my Browning, or at least spit on the floor to register contempt. Like “social diversity,” which is its opposite in real life–and like a thousand other weasel phrases too noxious to enumerate here–that neologism is not only not a synonym of individual liberty, but often its functional antonym. So you will not think less of me if I mention something called the European Court of Human Rights in other than a derisory way. Some nine years ago a man in...
In this first episode of our podcast, Dr Fleming spends some time breaking down the first few verses of Chapter 1 from St. John’s Gospel. By diving directly into the text, Dr Fleming absorbs the reader right into the study of Latin, using anecdotes and gentle encouragement in his inimitable style. There is a “gentle” version of Dr. Fleming! Take a listen. Original Air Date: December 9, 2015 Show Run Time: 49 minutes Show Guest(s): Dr. Thomas Fleming Show Host(s): Stephen Heiner The Fleming Foundation · Latin, Episode 1: Initium The Fleming Foundation Presents Latin℗ is a Production of...
I did not watch, hear, or read President Obama’s brilliant address offering a range of eminently practical solutions to the terrorist threat. Why bother? Like most of his recent predecessors, this President would not tell the truth if it were tattooed onto his brain, and if he did accidentally blurt out some particle of reality, the state media would immediately cover up his gaffe. The security of the United States and of its citizens is menaced by Muslims, but neither the President nor the media is willing even to state thate fact. Without reading the speech, I...
